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I'm one of many who decided to switch from Windows XP to Linux. So I decided to join the LInux Community and installed Linux Mint LMDE Mate 64bit.

After every login, I get the following message

User's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignored. This prevents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permissions. User's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by others.

I use a NTFS formatted logical drive on the secondary partition for my /home directory. I did this because I plan to share the /home directory with Windows XP running a VirtualBox on LMDE. I assume Windows XP can't access an Ext4 partition (even when running inside a VM).Perhaps NTFS is the problem?

It seems that owner and permissions don't change at all. After using the chown command, the owner of the file still seems to be root. I see this when I click right on the file and choose "Permissions" in the graphical user interface.

According to your first post you have XP installed in VirtualBox and you want to share folders with it. That is easily done by creating a "shared folder" which is accessible by both host and guest system. Formatting your Linux home directory to ntfs is not a good idea. Linux uses ext2, 3, 4.I recommend that you start again and format all of your LMDE installation to ext4, install VirtualBox and create a shared folder. If you are concerned about transferring data from XP to LMDE, you need not worry because LMDE will be able to read what is installed on XP.To run XP programs in LMDE is limited. You can use CrossOver or Wine for some but not all. You will find though that there are very few programs written for Windows that do not have an equivalent in Linux.

Yes, starting again and setting up all partitions with Ext4 is no problem.So, is it right that I will be able to access the shared folder from Windows XP (inside VirtualBox VM), even if the shared folder lies on a Ext4 partition? Does VirtualBox translate between the file systems?

Is it better to create [two primary partitions] or [one primary and on extended with a logical drive], or doesn't it matter? In Windows 95-98 era we used the latter method.

Perhaps if I describe my present setup it will answer all of your questions.

Linux Mint 16 is on its own SSD in a primary partition, ext4. XP is installed in VirtualBox, ntfs but for security reasons denied internet connection. A shared folder was established for both XP and Linux Mint 16. There are no constraints regarding the interchange of data between the two systems.

You are limited to 4 primary partitions per any one hard drive but can have many logical drives. There is no "better".

Windows 7 is installed on its own SSD in a 50 GB primary partition, ntfs and on that same SSD in a 62 GB primary partition, ext4, is my Linux Mint back up directory - I back up at least once a day.

A third drive, mechanical, currently contains two primary partitions housing two Linux systems. The partitions and their contents are subject to change with operating systems installed and deleted as required and therefore partitions are also deleted and created as required. I have found it advisable when creating partitions on a large capacity drive not to make the partitions evenly sized because they then become too difficult to differentiate.

One last point: In VirtualBox you can "save the machine state" when you have a particular program open and you can then re-access that program within a second of clicking on the trigger. In fact, you can easily add an entry in your main menu in Linux Mint to access that program in VirtualBox.

I don't understand why sudo chown myuser:myuser /home/myuser/.dmrc would not workMaybe you could rename .dmrc as rootsudo mv .dmrc .dmrcBAKThen open that in a text editor as user, not root, select all, copy, open a new document, paste, and save as .dmrc

I just followed the procedure I suggested to you and it gave me different results.As root I created a text file, /home/myusername/.testdmrcAfter saving, it was owned by root.I opened it in a text editor as user, select all, copy, open new document, paste, save as .testdmrc2Now .testdmrc2 is there, and owned by user.Then I ran sudo chown dan:dan .testdmrcand now .testdmrc is owned by dan

It has to be because your home is on a NTFS partition. You simply can't control permissions and ownership the same as with a ext partition.I think the answer is to install with no separate home, and just use the NTFS partition as data storage.

If you don't want to re-install, you can change your home to sda1. (Your sda1 is plenty big enough - actually, 20GB is all you need.) It is a bit tricky, but it can be done.You would have to create a /home directory, owned by root, on sda1. Then create a user directory (yourusername), owned by user. Then right-click on the user folder you just created and Open in Terminal, and create a mount point:mkdir /home/yourusername/mount_sda5

Then copy (as user) all of the hidden files and folders on sda5 (including .dmrc !) to /home/yourusername.

Then edit your fstab and comment out the line which designates sda5 as /home. (Put a # in front of the line.)Then you need to automount sda5 just as a data partition:Add these two lines to fstab, edit yourusername and correct UUID:# mount sda5 on /home/yourusername/mount_sda5UUID=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX /home/yourusername/mount_sda5 ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2

Save the fstab file, open a terminal, and run:mount -a

Now, the last step is to create symlinks in /home/yourusername on sda1 to link to the basic directories on sda5. (ln is L as in link)ln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Desktop /home/yourusername/Desktopln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Documents /home/yourusername/Documentsln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Pictures /home/yourusername/Picturesln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Downloads /home/yourusername/Downloadsln -s /home/yourusername/mount_sda5/yourusername/Music /home/yourusername/Musicetc. Repeat for any directories on sda5 that you want to appear in /home on sda1

I do not understand why you cannot change the owner of the .dmrc file but suggest that you create a new .dmrc file using a method other than "touch".

Yes, I created the .dmrc file with the text editor . I mentioned "touch" only as another possibility...

@austin.texasI will make a fresh install, but also want to try your suggestion about moving the home folder before, so I can learn more about the linux file system.I, as a linux newbie, do not understand two things in your post.

First, look at my /etc/fstab here, please. Why are the device names commented out? How does the OS know which filesystem to mount at the mount point? Is the filesystem identified by the UUID, and how is the UUID linked to the file system?

Second, you wrote I would have to create a /home directory on sda1. To create it on sda1, I think I have to create it in the / folder, because sda1 is mounted at /, right? But in the filesystem, /home is already a subfolder of /, so I think I cannot create another /home directory in it, can I?

Transistor wrote:I, as a linux newbie, do not understand two things in your post. First, look at my /etc/fstab here, please. Why are the device names commented out?

Those lines are commented out because they are meant to be comments explaining what the next line is for. Actually, they should be more descriptive. Mine look like this:# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installationUUID=1f9a81da-3ce9-4846-92b7-aa0297d91777 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1# swap was on /dev/sdc2 during installationUUID=56b2736a-2fb3-4ccc-8534-6dbb5b9085cb none swap sw 0 0# mount sdc3 on /home/dan/data_sdc3UUID=adea401f-1b5a-4ae1-922c-393dce06a3c4 /home/dan/data_sdc3 ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2

Transistor wrote:How does the OS know which filesystem to mount at the mount point? Is the filesystem identified by the UUID, and how is the UUID linked to the file system?

Every partition can be identified by DEVICE (/dev/sda1), or LABEL (if you assign a label), or UUID. The UUID is a long string of numbers assigned to each partition when the partition is created.Mint uses the UUID to identify the partitons in fstab. A few years ago, Mint used to use the DEVICE designation in fstab.Where your fstab says "UUID=1609906749D77127 /home ntfs defaults 0 0", it would act the same if it said "/dev/sda5 /home ntfs defaults 0 0"You can see the UUID numbers for your partitions by entering the command blkid in a terminal.

Transistor wrote:Second, you wrote I would have to create a /home directory on sda1. To create it on sda1, I think I have to create it in the / folder, because sda1 is mounted at /, right? But in the filesystem, /home is already a subfolder of /, so I think I cannot create another /home directory in it, can I?

You are right. It has been a very long time since I installed using a separate /home, and I assumed that you would have to create it. Let me do some further research on that question...

OK, when you designate a separate /home, like sda5, you do already have a /home directory on sda1, owned by root, so that part is done.However, when you look at that in your file manager, you see a directory with your user name, containing all the folders that you would expect - Music, Downloads, Desktop, etc. Those folders do not exist on sda1, in spite of the way it looks in your file manager. You can prove that by booting your live DVD or USB, and looking at sda1. There will be nothing there except /home with no contents.That is because your fstab mounts sda5 using that /home directory as the mount point, making the folders on sda5 appear to be on sda1.

Thanks for the description. I tried to move the /home folder. It worked!Now I also could fix the .dmrc error So, as a conclusion, I could say that NTFS was the wrong file system for the /home partition.